


Lucidity

by Anonymous



Series: El's nonexistent nonfics [7]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bombed thrice, Character Death, Crack Treated Seriously, Dimension Travel, Dream injuries, Dreaming, Dreams, Gen, Humor, I can now say ive planned this out and :), Imprisonment, Lucid Dreaming, No Romance, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV second-person, Pandora's Vault, Platonic Relationships, Reader-Insert, Sams here!!, Swearing, Tags May Change, Tone veers wildly, You Have Been Warned, it can be read as either honestly, just a little bit, no beta we die like l'manberg, oc-insert, touch-starvation, two people in a cell bitching at eachother, warden sam :(, you get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29210235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: For a while now, you've been having dreams, giving you deja vu for a life you have never lived.It all comes to a head when one night, you wake up in a prison cell.Every time you go to sleep, you appear back in that small obsidian room, the only other inhabitant being a touch-starved masked man who refuses to tell you why he's been incarcerated.That's fine, you already know. You did watch the goddamn streams after all.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Original Character, clay | dream & you, yes you - Relationship
Series: El's nonexistent nonfics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103498
Comments: 132
Kudos: 254
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Dreamin of dream-dream in a dream dream

**Author's Note:**

> Here I go again starting another one.

For a while now, your dreams have been strange.

Not strange as in nonsensical, like the stories one hears from coworkers or friends, when you're walking to work and the ground falls out beneath you and all of a sudden everything is made of strawberry jello and you can smell the colour blue, no, your dreams are nothing like that.

For the past few weeks you haven't been yourself in your dreams. You haven't been anyone. When you close your eyes as you hop into bed, light off and curtains drawn, your unconscious mind decides that it would be an incredibly interesting pastime to vividly hallucinate the sun setting with a sense of finality, the texture of cold black glass, a purple glow enveloping a dark sword and set of menacing armour. You don't do anything in these dreams, they don't lead anywhere, you just experience them like you're an obsessive observer that only cares about whatever the focus is. In all honesty they're more like extremely striking recollections of moments that you have never experienced, severe flashes of deja vu for a past that isn't your own.

To be frank, you're starting to dislike these dreams, if only for the fact that their presence means that your usual lucid dreaming was put on the backburner. You liked lucid dreaming. It was fun.

Which is why, after weeks and weeks of dreaming about vague, odd sensations and places and things that you knew nothing about, you were relieved to 'wake up' right after shutting your eyes in bed, aware and smiling, to a cold black-glass cube with minimal decoration. Huh.

You sat yourself upwards with a push of your hand, sliding up against the cold black wall -a reminder of your more recent, stranger dreams, how odd- and pulling your knees closer to your chest, your eyes casually scan the area. A wooden chest bolted to the floor is pressed up into the corner on your right side, along with some sort of book stand and a dull metal cauldron filled with water. To your left, the wall was bare, but a blue pool was carved into the ground, shallow. There was a figure directly ahead, back facing you as they stared into an almost blinding wall of red-hot heat, the edges of their green clothes were stained yellow with the light of the lava, only a few feet away from them.

With a start, you realised that you recognised this place. It was odd but intriguing, because you rarely dreamt of your interests, and the intricate storyline a group of people had carved so painstakingly into a game like minecraft had enraptured your attention for several months at this point. The only thing was, the prison cell built for Dream was probably the last place you could have imagined yourself into. How odd.

The green-clad man before you was painfully still as he continued to stare into the lava blocking the only entrance to the prison cell. Honestly, if this were real life you would be a slight bit concerned for his eyesight, even with the white edges of the circular mask you could see poking out from behind uncut sandy-blonde hair. His hood was down. You never really imagined a Dream character design with his hood down, but who were you to judge the wanderings of your subconscious? It had certainly outdone itself on the realism of the prison cell, the glowstone lamp suspended above the book stand- lectern? Whatever. The lamp looked like nothing you had ever seen before, a tightly clustered bunch of pale yellow crystal shining gently, colouring the obsidian around it with soft streaks of light.

Standing up, you purposefully made a shuffling noise with your pyjama bottoms to see how the green man would react to your presence. Nothing. A frown graced your lips briefly before vanishing, maybe it was one of those dreams where you just observed things, as an unseen spectator, unable to interact with the imagined world?

The ground was uniquely cold beneath your feet, and you irrationally wished you had worn shoes to bed, because the feeling was extremely unpleasant. You could suck it up, though. Taking a few measured steps forward, you found yourself behind the storyline villain, and you noticed that he was swaying somewhat, back and forth incredibly gently as his gaze remained unbroken from the molten rock in front of him. Half-stepping around him, you realise that the mask -how can he even see through that thing?- obscured any visual of his face, which was obvious in hindsight. Maybe he had fallen asleep standing up, that would be kind of funny, actually. 

You stare at the man for a few moments, marvelling at the realism your mind can produce. He looks very little like the mask-reveal image the real Dream had posted on social media after the youtube rewind, this Dream's mask was smaller, revealing the bottom of his chin and corners of his forehead- well, the parts that the fringe didn't cover, anyway. His hoodie was different, too, a more vivid neon, with no iconic smiley to be found. The one on his mask was thinner, the eyes and mouth slightly closer together in a way that would probably be unsettling if you saw it in the middle of the night. Glancing downwards, you noted how he even wore a pair of dark brown combat boots with black trousers tucked into them instead of the scuffed Nikes that had been the victims of thousands of 'what are those' jokes online. The guy even had the fingerless gloves, you realised with a grin, although his fingernails were plain and unpainted. Disappointing, you muched prefered black nail Dream supremacy.

The guy looked like he had stepped right out of one of the less esoteric Dream design fanarts, it was kind of freaky. You waved a hand in front of his face, and noted sadly that he didn't react despite the fact a shadow was cast upon the unfaltering monochrome grin. _'Oh well,'_ you thought, as you reached out to poke his shoulder, to see if there was any interaction you could have with this man before you tried to find your way out of here- god you hope you could find your way out of here, it would be the world's most boring lucid dream if you couldn't. 

Your pointer finger made contact with his shoulder, and for a brief moment you could feel flesh under layers of cloth, before his arm abruptly tensed, the masked man flinging himself away from you in a sudden movement that drew a yelp from your throat, and you found yourself stumbling backwards in surprise into a sweltering heat, your right arm held behind yourself made contact with a boiling liquid that felt thicker than water, the areas that made contact quickly going numb, no pain experienced.

The last thing you saw in your dream, before you woke up, before you tumbled onto your ass and then right into lava was the masked man, hidden face unindicative of emotion, but body radiating shock and surprise. The back of your head hit the lava and your vision went blank.

Opening your eyes to the buzz of your alarm clock, you squinted through the morning light pouring onto your face from a gap in your curtains. Grimacing, you rolled over in the bed. That had certainly been a weird dream.

Little did you know, however, it wouldn't be last time you dreamt of that cell.


	2. Dream-Dream is an ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I didn't think you were real!"
> 
> "That's on you!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you couldn't tell by the swearing tag, there's a lot of swearing, both in narration and in dialogue. Sorry about that.
> 
> Also! When I say two people in a cell bitching, I mean theyre always bitching, the friendship develops slowly over time.

Shortly after waking up from the weird dream you realised that up to your wrist on your right hand, which was the one that had first touched the lava in the dream, you couldn't feel anything. It was completely numb.

With slight worry you mentally noted this down and then decided to wait it out to see if you regained any feeling in it, because not only could you move your fingers perfectly fine, you also had work today. A quick google search assuaged your fears, and while you could have possibly had carpal tunnel or the many other causes google claimed caused numb limbs in the morning, many of which you had no clue about, it also said that a very common cause of the numbness you were experiencing was sleeping in a position that compressed a nerve.

Deciding that you likely slept on your hand weird, you went about your day, getting dressed and making your way to work. Manoeuvring your right hand was slightly harder when you couldn't feel anything in it, and repeatedly you fumbled the buttons on the white shirt you had decided to wear for the day, but you managed.

Throughout the day you slowly regained feeling in your fingers. At first the process was nigh-unbearable, because the constant sensation of television static in your fingers was worse than the numbness, but by the time you finished your shift your hand was back to normal. The only major incident of the day that occurred being when you dropped a coffee cup on your lunch break. Apologising to your coworkers, you had to clean the mess up, taking up some valuable Dream SMP VOD-watching time. 

When work was over you went straight home, your apartment only a fifteen minute walk from your workplace. As you leisurely strolled back home, you spared a thought or two towards the dream you had had last night. It had certainly ended on a strange note, and had felt quite short despite the fact you knew you had slept for several hours. You wondered, when would you have it again? If you ever would, that is. It wasn't a foreign concept for your mind to conjure up an elaborate dream and then abandon it forever once you woke up in the morning.

Reaching your apartment, you turned the silvery key in the lock and slid off your shoes at the entrance as you slipped inside. Pulling up the twitch app on your phone, you browsed through twitter for a bit, before deciding to spend the rest of your day watching bits of streams that you had missed, full VODs, highlight channels, the works.

As the sun set and it got darker and darker outside of your home, it was with a yawn and a stretch you decided that it was probably time for you to go to bed. After preparing yourself, you threw yourself underneath the covers with your electric blanket turned on, used your amazing phone-based willpower to stop scrolling and turn on your alarms, and then you shut your eyes, ready to sleep.

You were happy when you once again awoke, aware, to the cell from the previous night's dream. The obsidian floor was smooth under your hands as you pushed yourself upwards from where you had found yourself lying on your stomach, the soft shine of the glowstone lamp somewhere to your right. Standing up, you turned to look at it-

Only to let out a high-pitched scream as you came face-to-face with a smiling mask, only centimetres away from your face. Tumbling backwards, you tripped and fell onto your ass, the second time you had done that in a dream in the same number of days.

"Fuck, man!" You exclaimed to the hooded blond, "Don't do that!"

Dream just stood there, posture loose but hands half-clenched into fists. The tilted his head, smiley mask watching you with it's unblinking gaze, and a slight shiver ran down your spine as you realised that _hey,_

 _This fucker is_ scary.

It was a surreal thought, because while you had seen countless depictions of this guy being terrifying in both art and fanfiction, the concept of "guy wearing an emoticon mask" never seemed scary to you. You plastered a nervous smile on your face before you remembered that this was only a dream, what did you even have to be scared of? 

As you pushed yourself back into your previous position, the awkward silence (save for the dull _crack-pop_ of lava) that had enveloped the cell was broken by none other than dream-Dream himself. 

"Who _are_ you?" He asked, and _holy shit_ , he even sounded like the real deal! Your brain was so cool.

You were momentarily fazed by the uncannily similar voice your brain had conjured up, and Dream seemed to take it as a sign to continue talking. _Rude._

"You aren't one of the usual ones. Have I finally gone crazy?" What? Usual ones?

"Usual ones?" You repeat, because you have absolutely no brain-to-mouth filter. Dream gave you a _look_ that you couldn't even see due to the mask, you just knew he was questioning your sanity or something based off of the slight change in posture that turned his question from _'who is this?'_ to _'who is this crazy motherfucker?'_. You huffed, and crossed your arms.

You threw a snappy response right back at the guy. "Don't answer that, actually. The answer is yes. I'm the ghost of all your past mistakes here to haunt you, bitch."

He paused for a moment, visibly taken aback. You didn't think he'd be this expressive, actually, but you supposed it made sense seeing as he wore a mask all the time.

He seemed to gather his thoughts another moment before responding, crossing his arms like the world's shittiest copycat. You had _just_ done that, take up some other slightly hostile body-language, Dream.

"Alright," he said, and then nothing else, as he ste _pped towards you uh oh what was this_ \- and proceeded to walk straight past you and towards where he had been standing yesterday, staring into the swirling red-orange patterns of the drifting lava. He was-

He was ignoring you. _Excuse you?_

" _Excuse me?_ " You said, mildly outraged at the blatant disregard this prick was showing you. It was _your_ dream! 

The rude motherfucker continued to ignore you, gazing into the lava and swaying back and forth slightly on his heels. This was apparently his daily routine.

You grit your teeth. Honestly you don't know why you were this mad. Usually you were a lot calmer in daily life, but it felt as if you had your full range of non-calmed emotions rushing through you as you stared at the back of Dream's green hoodie, anger at being dismissed without a second thought flowing through your veins. You were going to hit the fucker.

Marching up behind him, he _still_ ignored you, you did just that. You hit the fucker. You swung at his back with a closed fist, thumb over fingers and middle finger slightly extended just to hurt a little bit more. It connected and he jerked forward with a slight yelp of surprise and probably pain, before you found yourself face-down on the obsidian floor, arm held painfully against your back. _Ow_ and also, _wait, what?_

Replaying what had just happened in your head again to try and get a better grasp on the sheer speed the guy had moved with, you blinked. You had hit him, he had flinched, he had spun around lightning-fast and used the momentum of his foot to trip you, flip you around and slam you to the floor and into an unbreakable grip in like, less than five seconds.

What the fuck.

" _What the fuck?!_ " You yelled, only to wince as he twisted your arm further, a slight degree of pain shooting through your shoulder before it was followed by a quick numbness.

" _Who the hell are you?_ " He growled into your ear from close behind you, and wow, if you weren't absolutely terrified right now you'd definitely make some sort of innuendo about that.

"What the fuck do you me-AH!" Your questioning gets cut off as he once again sends a shooting pain through your shoulder, this once worse. Can the guy just let you fucking talk for a minute??

"How did you get in here." He asks-states? His tone is really flat. It's hard to tell- and this is honestly the worst dream.

"I don't know bro, I just went to sleep!" You tell him, which is absolutely true, because if you knew how to control your dreams you wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't be having the same shitty ones on repeat that you had been experiencing for the last few months.

The hand he has gripped around your wrist tightens for a second, and you mentally prep yourself to let out an impressive volley of curses should he try to make the hold he has you in any worse- before his grip loosens slightly, the lack of dull pain on your shoulder that comes with the relaxed restraint practically heaven-like, you let out a sigh of relief as he does.

"You're telling the truth…" he murmurs quietly, letting go of you fully and standing up, taking his knee off of your back in the process. The tone he's using is one you recognise from the many minecraft manhunts that you've watched, the same tone that the real Dream uses when he's in the midst of thinking up one of his ten-thousand IQ plays. You don't really care about the inner workings of a mind-within-a-mind, though.

Rolling over, you see that the green asshole has a hand to his chin in the classic thinking position, body language still turned towards you, not dismissing you as a threat, which to be honest you probably weren't but it was a boost to your ego that he considered you one.

"Fuck you." You tell him plainly, standing up. "You're a dickhead." 

"You sound like Tommy."

"Better than sounding like you, prick."

He snorts at your response, lowering the hand at his chin to rest it upon his hip. "That doesn't even make sense." He says, waving a hand. You flip him off. He laughs.

A moment passes in which he keeps staring at you, and you awkwardly stretch out your arms, paying particular attention to your now-stiff shoulder. "What's your name?" Dream asks.

You tell him.

He tilts his head in an acknowledging gesture, and then motions to himself with a splay of his fingers. "My name's Dream," he tells you, like you didn't already know. "How did you end back up here?" He asks, and there's an odd note in his voice that you can't identify.

You shrug. Your shoulder feels fine now, and the anger has drained out of you now that you aren't being unfairly dismissed. Who knew the key you needed to have an actual conversation with this guy was violence? "I have no clue man. I just went to bed and woke up here" You tell him.

You don't bother telling him this is a dream, people you dream about always act weird if you try to make that little fact known, they either ignore it like you hadn't even spoken or the entire thing gets weirdly existential and you wake up feeling bad and vaguely guilty.

Dream seems contemplative, stepping towards you slightly as he continues his tirade of questions. "Do you know Sam?" He asks, and you shake your head no because you've never met the dream-version or real-version of the guy before, and counting twitch streams as 'knowing him' seems weirdly parasocial to you. "Tommy? Bad? Tubbo?" More denials.

"You just appeared, did you teleport in?" Jeez, how long is he going to go on about this?

"Listen dude," you say with a wave of your hand, "I just went to bed and then woke up here. That's how it happened. If you wanna speculate more on that feel free to, but I'm going to go and… look in the chest or something." _'There really isn't much in here to entertain.'_ you think to yourself, as you turn to move over to the corner of the room where all the (limited) interesting things are, only to jerk backwards as your wrist is gripped and pulled harshly back, your side colliding into the front of the mask-wearing boundary-breaker.

"What the _fuck,_ man?!" You yell for what seems like the nth time tonight, yanking your wrist from his grip, he takes another step towards you, larger this time, and you step backwards just as far.

"Don't just ignore me!" He yells right back.

"The _double standard,_ bitch!"

"I didn't think you were real!"

"That's on you!"

Your response seems to baffle him slightly, before he takes another step towards you, yourself being forced further back towards the lava.

"Look," he says, "I don't know you, I don't know how you got in here twice in a row, but you've already lost one life and in-" he visibly glances backwards towards the clock, staring at it for a second "-and come morning, Sam, the Warden, is going to check up on this cell. What do you think is going to happen then? I just want to help you." He says, and he sounds convincing about it. Maybe if you weren't dreaming and were also unaware of his history of gaslighting kids, you might believe him. But as it stands?

Oh yeah, you were totally, absolutely, utterly _terrified_ at the thought of Awesamdude the Warden coming in to fight you. Totally. /s.

"Oh _no_ ," you say, voice dripping with sarcasm, and you relish the look of confusion that comes over Dream's body language, (and probably face but you couldn't see that in the slightest) the man clearly doubting your sanity. You didn't really care at this point, you were tired of this dream and kinda wanted to wake up. 

This dream-Dream was an asshole, anyway.

"Look," he tells you, clearly believing you to be crazy, "I just want to know how you got in here so we can get you out. Is there _anything_ you can tell me that wasn't you going to sleep and then waking up here? Because I didn't see you enter either time." Jesus, this guy.

You take a step back. "Listen," he takes a step forward, "I know I can't fight you for shit, but if you wanna know how to break out of prison you can just ask me how to break out of prison." Step back.

He pauses. "How do I break out of prison?"

You grin up at him, because the green-clad man is fairly tall, even without the extra inch or so his boots probably give him. He's looming over you, and you find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place, or rather, hot place, the wall of lava burning at your back, the heat nothing like you've ever felt before. Time to wake up.

"Well?" He asks.

You put on a look of confusion. "Prison break?" You say, "Fuck if I know."

And with that, you throw yourself backwards towards the lava, before you, Dream starts abruptly and tries to lunge towards you, gloved hand outstretched but falling short of actually grabbing you. A loud "WAI-" leaves his lips right before the back of your head makes contact with the burning rock, going numb just as your vision goes black.

Blinking up at the familiar sight of your bedroom ceiling, you realise that your body is twisted in an extremely weird and awkwardly contorted position, and you can't feel your pillow beneath your head. Sitting up and tapping the back of your head, you find it numb, confirming your suspicions that you slept oddly again tonight. Funny, that was probably what made you dream of hitting the lava in the way you did.

It was always neat to learn how things in the real world could affect your dreams.

~~Or was it the other way around?~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream is an asshole and so is the reader/oc to an extent. It'll be a relatable quality.
> 
> They get better in the future, I swear lol.


	3. LIFE 3 BABY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, maybe you can finally get to know him a bit more. Third time's the charm?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT GETS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER UH OH

A full two days pass after your second dream of being in Pandora's Vault, and in that time you stick to your usual routine. Going out to work, watching youtube videos at lunch, coming home and continuing to watch videos or streams, with the occasional interspersed bit of gaming, or hanging out on voice call with some of your close friends.

Many people would say it's an unsatisfying life, but you're perfectly content with the little corner of comfort you've carved out for yourself in the world. Honestly, the only thing that could probably improve it would be a pet, but you don't trust yourself with that kind of responsibility for even a second. Maybe in the future.

The weekend comes and you wake up Saturday morning ready to spend the day with yourself, indulging in your favorite pastimes. You go on an hour-long walk in the relative morning when the air is still crisp and cold and dew lies dotted on blades of grass, because you know that you'll be sitting down relaxing for most of the day and you'd like to get a little bit of exercise in before you do.

When you get home, you open up your shitty old laptop, and tune in to your favorite streamers, half-heartedly typing out a chapter for a fanfiction you're never going to post. The day passes like that, you watch these people be entertaining and bust a gut laughing at several points, play video games, walk around your apartment and order pizza once the sun has set. It's the little things that keep you from driving yourself insane, you think, as you banter over voice call with a friend who lives halfway across the world at 3 a.m. They tell you to go to sleep as they hang up, but there's a Jackbox stream on Quackity's channel just starting, and you're in a giggly mood.

By the time your eyelids are actually heavy with onset exhaustion, it's six a.m, and you thank whatever cosmic force is out there as you go to sleep. Your head hits the pillow, and as you drift off you don't think of the weird double-dream you had had two days ago, it had taught you that pins and needles in the back of your head was the weirdest sensation ever, and then vanished from your mind once you went to sleep the next night and got right back to dreaming of concepts.

But it's a pleasant surprise when your eyes drift open and you find yourself in a now-familiar realistic room, curled up into a ball in the same space you had woken up three times now.

"You're back."

You sit up, not particularly feeling like standing this time, and look towards where Dream is. He's cross-legged against the cauldron, only a few feet away from you. "I am." You say.

He tilts his head and the beady black eyes on his ever-present mask remain locked onto your form. "I had thought-" he pauses, unsure, "I had thought that maybe you had been on your last life."

Oh yeah, you recall, the three canon life system. You think that he might've mentioned that the last time you were around, but it got caught up in the blatant and heavy-handed manipulation he tried to use on you. Honestly you expected better from this Dream, he was supposed to be the ultimate manipulative villain. Maybe isolation had made him rusty.

He doesn't take your silence as an excuse to speak this time, and it hangs in the air above the two of you. Well then.

"It wasn't." You say plainly, before crossing your arms and adopting a small grin on your face, legs splayed out in front of you in a relaxed stance. "How was the visit from Sam the Warden?" You ask him, teasing.

He hangs his head, arms draped over his half-propped knees. "He didn't visit."

"Wow!" You exclaim. "So you were _lying_!"

He sputters like a faulty car engine. "No I wasn't!" Dream yells, offended. "I just-" his shoulders drop as he cuts himself off.

"You just what?"

"Sam visits irregularly. He comes in the morning so I thought that he would come then."

You raise a quizzical brow at him. "Why were you so sure he'd show up?"

"Because you were here."

You blink. You don't really know how to respond to that, but- "Ah." That does make sense, you think, shifting yourself so you can recline more against the uncomfortable wall. You had dreamt yourself into the highest-security prison cell in the nigh-impenetrable Pandora's Vault, and speaking of which, this cell was completely bereft of a bed, you note. Poor fucker must sleep terribly.

The masked man lets the thread of conversation drop, and you sure ain't carrying this entire thing on your back. You stare ahead of you, at the mesmerising drifting patterns of molten red rock, black cooler bits clash with yellow shining light patches as the magma drifts drown over the entrance to the cell. You can see how this would be the most interesting pastime available, once Dream got bored of spinning the clock.

You continue vibing like that for a short while, eyes tracing the delicate swirls on the wall of heat before you, but Dream ruins your vibe by speaking, because of course he does.

"You're on your last life." He states. You nod in response because you don't feel like speaking, and also because yeah, what he's saying does make sense. As a regular human person, you only have one life, but even in dream logic going by the three canon death system, you would only have one canon life left after plunging yourself into lava twice. You keep staring at the lava. You kinda want to touch it.

You blink in realisation at your lethargic state, your eyelids hanging halfway covering your vision. How can you get tired in your own dream? Sitting up from the slowly-worsening slump you had been falling into, you stretch both arms above your head with your fingers interlocked, relishing the sensation of blood flowing through your limbs. "Sorry," you say to Dream from where he's still watching you like a hawk, "I stayed up till like, five-thirty a.m at least."

He cocks his head at you before he responds. "Wait," he glances at the clock behind him, hoodie twisting slightly over his torso, "You just went to sleep? It's sunrise."

Huffing, you flip him the bird. "I didn't come here for you to judge me based on my sleep schedule, asshole"

He flips you off right back. Copycat. "Why did you come here, then?"

You shrug your shoulders in a hopefully nonchalant way that either makes you look super cool and laid back, or like an absolute idiot. You hope it's the former. "I'm just that good," you say, blowing imaginary dust off of your nails.

You refuse to admit that you jumped slightly at the kettle wheeze noise he made following your sentence, which would probably lead to some confusion if you ever were to tell this story to somebody, because his intensified laughter at your pathetic little startle would seem like it came out of nowhere.

"You're a _nerd!_ " He wheezes, bent double where he's seated, and you have to fight a smile from plastering itself on your face because your green-clad cellmate has some of the most infectious laughter you've ever heard.

"I am not!" You yell, but there's no bite behind it.

"Yes you a-" he freezes as he cuts himself off, laughter-filled words coming to a dead halt as he tilts his head, stilling.

"Uh." You say, because what the fuck? What the fuck.

Wordlessly, Dream scrambles to his feet and lunges towards you. You let out a shriek as he grabs your wrist and pulls you upwards, before you unleash a barrage of cuss words that would make a sailor blush.

"Let go of me you fucking prick!" You yell, before he slaps a hand over your mouth. You stick your tongue out on instinct, but he doesn't release you.

 _"Shush."_ He hisses, and out of the corner of your eye you can see he's tilting his head like he's listening desperately for something you can't hear.

Everything is still.

And then Dream bursts back into motion, an almost frantic aura surrounding him. "You have to hide, _now_." He tells you, and you take advantage of his panic to yank your arm out of his grip and pry his palm away from your mouth.

"What the _fuck_ are you even on about?" You ask him, and he goes to respond before he glances down at his gloved palm, wet with spit.

"Did you fucking _lick_ me??" He asks of you, incredulity dripping from his tone. His head whips back up towards you as he holds his hand out in disgust, and you stick your tongue out at him.

"More where that came from, try me." He stares at you for a moment.

You realise that you still had your tongue out while you said that, so it came out of your mouth sounding more like. "Moum hua tha thame fom, ty me." Your face heats up.

You're still sticking your tongue out.

He shakes his head minutely, probably making the wise decision to ignore your bullshit. "I heard pistons. Sam is coming," he says, and _ohhh_ that explains the panic. "You need to hide, now."

You gesture around the obsidian room with both arms, finally retracting your now-dry tongue. You don't speak a word, but the look on your face plainly reads ' _Hide_ where, _asshole?_ '

He points towards the shallow little pool in the far corner of the cell, and then to the metre wide hole in the roof that leads to _somewhere_. You think it had something to do with Dream respawning? "Up there," he tells you. You blink at him, lost.

"I can lift you up there and you can hold yourself against the wall while Sam's here, then you can drop down."

You bark a laugh in his face. No fucking way. "No fucking way," you repeat, "I wouldn't be able to hold myself up there for even a second. Hell, I'd break both my legs from the fall, that pool is shallow as hell!"

He groans, desperate, "You have to hide somewhere!"

"What about the chest? The literal container with a lid on it?"

"It's filled with books, you wouldn't fit. Look, Sam could very easily kill you, I don't want that to happe-"

"No, you _look._ " You cut him off. The lava pops behind you. "I don't really care about Sam. I don't I just want you to know that I am _absolutely_ not going to be able to hold position suspending myself in the air in a metre-wide chute thing. The only feasible option here is the chest, and- are you even listening to me?" Dream is frozen, facing you but completely tensed. You notice how the sound of lava is now conspicuously absent from the room, as well as how your voice seems to echo a bit more.

"Oh my god he's right behind me, isn't he?" You ask. Dream doesn't respond. You whip around and come face-to-chest with the _tallest_ motherfucker you've ever seen.

Behind you, Dream speaks up, "Sam, I can explain-" he says, a desperate note hinged in his voice. You don't pay attention. 

Sam, Awesamdude, stands at a whopping height of probably 7"4, if canon is to be believed. He was armoured in the most intimidating set of black metal armour, all proper layers and points, nothing like the typical sheet of colour you picture regular minecraft armour to be. It's glowing intensely, and the purple light shining off it reflects against the visor of the weird gas-mask looking thing he wears on his face, a completely black screen in the shape of a creeper's face with two filters jutting out of the sides. His hair, you note absently, is bright green. Seems like at least one version of him went through with the dye job.

The majority of your attention, however, is not focused on his hair, or the admittedly sick-ass looking mask he wears. It's on the armour, your eyes follow subtle waves of glow as the purple sheen of light covering it ripples like it's an ocean. You have to poke it.

"Explain what, prisoner?" Sam asks, he's using the Warden Voice™, and it sounds cold and surprisingly hostile in real life. You ignore him also, eyes still locked on the armour. Just… one small touch.

You bring your hand up and feel embarrassingly like an awestruck cat as you poke the center of the enchanted netherite chestplate he wears, only to let out a wordless noise of disappointment as your finger goes right through the glowing surface like you didn't exist. Then you shove your entire arm straight through his chest to see how far you can go with this.

It passes through without resistance and the Warden doesn't react. He repeats himself, tone harsher this time. "Explain what?" Dream is silent behind you.

You wave at yourself over Sam's shoulder.

"Nothing." Dream says, tone quiet. The Warden steps forwards right through you, letting out a slight noise of disbelief. 

"Right." He says. "Against the wall, now."

Dream shuffles up against the obsidian wall, furthest distance away from the now present wall of lava. Oh yeah, it came back even when two visitors came to the cell.

You watch mutely as Dream places both his hands against the wall and spreads his legs slightly, and the Warden scans him with a red-screened device, before moving on. He checks up the chute Dream had tried to hide you in, so you suppose that if you weren't somehow intangible and invisible, you would be absolutely fucked. He examines the boltings on the cauldron, chest and lectern, flips through a few pages in the many books stowed inside, and taps at the clock.

"You haven't thrown this one into the lava yet." He says.

"Are you going to ask me how my day was?" Dream asks, still facing the wall, back straight.

"Be quiet, prisoner"

You wince. Yeesh. Tough crowd.

Sliding over to Dream, because the Warden isn't paying heed to anything you do, you poke at him, wondering if you've suddenly developed the ability to pass through anything. You tap at his hand, and feel flesh below your touch. He tenses, more so than he already was, which honestly seems like an impossible feat but yet he did it.

"Can I have another book?" He asks.

The Warden pauses from where he was flipping through the pages of another hardback, staring at him. Dream isn't facing him, but you think he can feel the eyes on his back, because he continues.

"I finished one again. I wrote on every page."

There's a pregnant pause that hangs in the air.

"I'll think about it." The Warden says, before he places the book back down on the lectern and the lava falls again, revealing a large obsidian room with a molten hot floor, and an odd stone machine that he steps onto. In silence, the machine starts to move, the _clunk-chunk_ of pistons firing propelling it against all laws of gravity through the air. You can barely see him reaching the other side, where a door unseals and lets him out into a dimly lit hallway, -also obsidian, you're sensing a theme- before the lava pours back down, familiar glowing wall reappearing as balance is returned to the cell once more.

You turn to Dream, tone casual. "You know, I've been around enough people like that to know that 'I'll think about it' actually means 'no way in hell'."

He doesn't even turn to look at you.

You frown, poking at his side a couple of times. No response. His fingers are half-bent, pressed up against the wall with such force that his knuckles are drained white, still in the position he went into while getting searched.

You groan. "Not the whole 'ignoring me' thing again, dude." You jab at his side with two fingers this time, more harshly, and he twitches slightly. "I thought we were over that."

He murmurs something under his breath and you scrunch your face up in confusion. "What?"

"You aren't real." He repeats, and his tone is deadened. "Sam didn't see you."

There's a moment where everything is quiet.

"Of course I'm real!" You exclaim, thoughts racing to ways you can try and cheer up this really off-seeming dream-Dream. "Would a hallucination be able to do… this??"

He tilts his head to stare at you in dull curiosity, hood hanging over him like a specter. He looks like a broken man.

You kick him in the back of his knee and with an undignified squawk he crumbles to the floor, clearly unprepared for your ingenious cheer-up assault.

"What the _hell?_ " He yells, and it's a step up from the depression haze he was in just a second ago, so personally you take it as a win.

"I'm real and I'm not going away, asshole!" You crow triumphantly over him. He stares up at you for a second before grabbing your ankle and yanking your foot out from under you. Shrieking, you topple backwards, head slamming against the obsidian wall with a sharp burst of pain before the typical numbness of dream injuries comes over it. You wince anyway. "Ow!" You yell. You could've sworn you heard a crack there, and something wet trickles down the back of your neck.

Dream however, wheezes like your suffering is the funniest thing ever. It's half-hysterical, like he had just gotten his worldview pulled out like a rug from under his feet several times in a row, which he probably did seeing as his opinion of you flip-flopped between 'real' to 'hallucination' to 'real' again.

Despite the unpleasant sensation of imagined blood flowing down your neck, you laugh with him and his contagious kettle-laugh, letting out a small _'pfft'_ noise before you're laughing uproariously. _'This guy is such a prick,'_ you think, but there's little heat behind it.

Through his laughter, Dream tries to string together a sentence, having to stop multiple times as his failed attempts to speak through wheezes makes you giggle harder, which also makes him laugh harder. Eventually though, he manages it.

"Alright," he says, looking at you. His shoulders are still shaking minutely. "If you're so clearly real, then how come Sam couldn't see you."

You giggle. You're giggly. You're in the lightest mood you've been in for probably a moth, and you don't care to focus much. The blood still flows heavily down the back of your neck, but even that can't dampen your lightheaded spirits.

"Uh," you say, like it's obvious, "because I'm dreaming."

He snorts, calmed down somewhat. "What?" He asks.

You cackle until you're lightheaded, lightheaded-er than you were prior, whatever. "I told you thrice, dude!" You exclaim through laughter. "I'm in bed! I'm dreaming and shit!"

He tilts his head sideways, and you can imagine it tilting further, the little smiley face grinning up at you as it spins round and round and round and- you were making yourself very dizzy. Shaking your head to get rid of the nausea, you winced as it just made it worse.

Dream is quiet, all vestiges of humour vanished from his person as he loooooooooks at you weird. You squeezed your eyes shut. Wow, you _really_ didn't feel good.

"Are you okay?" He asks, concerned. You nod your head in confirmation and then almost fold yourself over at the wave of _pain-then-numb_ that comes when you shake your cranium. You can hear the green smiley man curse as he sees the bloodied back of your head, and the corresponding spot of blood-covered obsidian where you had hit it.

You vaguely feel a hand on your shoulder as you're pulled upwards, but you weakly brush it off with a slurred "'M finnne."

"No," says green smile man, funny mask, "No you're not. You're on your last life and I pushed you and you aren't okay in the slightest-"

You slap him, looking at his relative-face position from the sensory fishbowl you found yourself submerged in, where his eyes would be, did he even have eyes? Wait, what were you thinking about? "'ll be fine d'de," you tell him, half-coherent. The edges of your vision are missing, huh?

"Holy shit." He says, and that's the last thing you hear before you slump to the side, dead.

And then you wake up in your bed, with the world's worst headache. _Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stream gnfof its funny. ALSO. F to you, death via bantering.
> 
> LISTEN, I LOVE SAM AWESAMDUDE BUT C! HIM WOULD N O T TREAT C!DREAM IN A FRIENDLY MANNER IF HE KNEW OF HIS CRIMES AGAINST MINORS AND ALSO OTHER PEOPLE.


	4. Dream Interlude One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theres blood on the wall theres blood on the wall they treated you like a person theres blood on the wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll get back to our regularly scheduled programme of two dumbfucks swearing at eachother next chapter, but for now have some Drangst (Dream Angst)

The body lay there for maybe two hours before Dream realised that it wasn't going to disappear. Why would it? They had been real the entire time.

~~Right?~~

He had moved himself to the corner, pressing his back up against the hard wood chest that was marginally warmer than the pitch walls, walls that seeped heat from his body with every glancing skin-on-obsidian touch.

He could still see the corpse from the corner of his eye. The blood on the wall. Sam couldn't see them. Sam didn't see them. They were real.

(Right?) ~~There was blood on the wall~~

The unique smell of drying blood and molten lava burnt Dream's nose. He glanced back to the body where it lay slumped, hair matted and tangled at the back, filled with clots of dried blood, the matching red-but-browning mark on the obsidian behind them only confirming one damning thing in Dream's mind.

He had killed his only way out of here.  
(He had killed the only person that treated him like a human.)

It was an odd thing, when they had appeared behind him the first time. He had thought them merely another one of the shades, the half-people with half-voices that he saw when Sam didn't visit for a longer than average period. Then they had touched him, actually touched him, something none of the other shades had ever done, and he looked at them and immediately thought of a few key concepts. _Unknown. Useable. Escape route._ They talked to him like they hadn't the slightest clue who he was.

(It was an odd thing, when they had appeared behind him the first time. He didn't want to be hurt by another unreal friend, another promise of what could have been had people just _listened_ to him. If they hadn't forced his hand. Then they had touched him, actually touched him, something none of the other false-futures had ever done, and he looked at them and immediately thought of a few key concepts. _Person. Real. Second chance._ They talked to him like he wasn't the source of all the world's evils.)

The blood on the wall started to dry, and the blood that had pooled around the head of the dead body had become stickier and less fluid. He had to get rid of it. 

Dream walked over to the corpse and hefted it over his shoulder like he was walking home a drunk friend, its feet dragged lifelessly against the ground and the head lolled downwards, briefly tapping against his own mask before he readjusted the positioning. (He felt sick.)

He dragged the corpse towards the wall of lava, and tossed it in. It sank through the glowing red as the smell of burning flesh hissed outwards, Dream watched as their legs sank slowly into the burning block on his freedom, the corpse being dragged down with the flames as gravity worked its magic and they slipped below the vertical sea of fire and-

Dream was hyperventilating. He felt lightheaded. He lifted a finger to his mask and there was blood on it, when had he gotten blood on it? The blood in the air burnt more than the lava ever could, It burnt, it burnt, it _burnt_.

Not thinking about his actions, not even in the slightest, Dream rushed the fire that kept him prisoner from the outside world. His shoulder hit the burning rock and he could feel agonising pain before the nerves in his shoulders were almost instantly scorched, then his arm, his neck, his head, his back. The pain was unbearable, and Dream would have closed his eyelids tightly, would have screamed using his vocal cords had they not been reduced to ash floating about the magma.

The pain didn't last, it took one moment, two, and he found himself respawning at the bed Sam had set up above his cell, disoriented, he didn't fight as he was pushed back down the chute, landing in the shallow water with a splash.

His clothes would be wet, now. (There wasn't any blood) ~~There was blood on the wall~~

He could die as many times as he wanted, they wouldn't be able to properly kill him if he hadn't even managed the task himself in all of his years. He could throw himself into the lava as many times as he wanted. It didn't change anything.

His clothes would still be wet afterwards. (There wasn't any blood) ~~There was blood on the wall~~

Picking himself up, Dream walked on ginger legs towards the lava yet again, standing still before the panel of light. He could feel the warmth it gave off already starting to dry his clothes. He tried to not think of the blood behind him. He failed to not think of the blood behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> READER/OC IS FINE BRO THIS IS JUST GREEN BOY PANICKING. This fic aint ending dw.
> 
> Also, sometimes I'm ashamed with my fellow dream apologists, yeah we forgiving this man for a ton of fucked up shit but "I dont care if he tortured tommy because I personally don't care about annoying people" is such a cold take 😔. Or maybe thats the tommy apologist in me jumping out I dont know.


	5. Playin u, bae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That doesn't make any sense!" He yells. You snort at him.
> 
> "Yes it does, I just can't die!"
> 
> "That isn't possible!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'I see a dreamer' song is stuck in my head 24⁸/7

Your Sunday morning, evening, and night is spent in the most zombie-like fashion imaginable. The pounding migraine in your head that's been present ever since you woke up prevents you from doing most things normal humans can do, like look at light without crying from the pain. Halfway through the day you call your doctor about it, and they tell you that if it persists for longer than a day you have to drag yourself down to the closest pharmacy and get a stronger painkiller than the two paracetamol you took three hours back. You groan in acknowledgement and pay the fee over your phone, before practically tossing the thing onto your bed, wincing at the burning light set on the lowest brightness possible.

Luckily, you don't end up having to go down and get prescription drugs, because come Monday your head is fine. Fine enough to go to work, unfortunately, but you'd take the stalling drudgery of speaking to customers over the blinding agony of what had to be the worst migraine ever experienced by a human person. You now hold a much deeper respect for people who go through this shit chronically.

The week passes normally. Every time you wake up in the morning, you feel slightly disappointed that you didn't dream of the prison cell. You don't know what it was about that specific lucid dream, but it stuck in your memory, made you anticipatory for the next segment of whatever storyline your subconscious was stringing you along on.

Monday passed, nothing. Then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You thought a bit less about the dream and more about how irritating work was starting to become. Your lunch break had been cut, while it was a generous amount of time beforehand, now you had to rush a slight bit more to eat your food and also enjoy a video or two. 

But on Friday night, you closed your laptop mid-stream, exhaustion from the stressful work week piling on to your shoulders and weighing you down. You dropped it gently to the floor, and kicked your leg over the arm of the couch you were draped over, positioning making you look like a half-drunk anatomy model despite the fact you hadn't drunk anything that night. Strands of hair lay over your face and you blew them away, irritated. You really needed to get a haircut.

Your eyes began fluttering shut, and you knew that you had to go to bed before you fell asleep but…

A quick nap wouldn't hurt…

You awoke feeling submerged in something lukewarm, but in your lethargic state you couldn't really bring yourself to care, noting in the back of your mind that you knew you were dreaming. Let's see where this one went, then. Opening your eyes, you realise that you've found yourself floating in water, everything a dim black-blue with an exception of a faint rippling light coming from above what must be the surface of the water.

You tried to swim upwards, but quickly realised that you weren't in an enormous body of water like the ocean, rather, you weren't even fully submerged, you could feel your legs sticking out on cold hard ground, so you pushed yourself upwards and spat out the clear bluish liquid that had been inside your mouth in a stream. You were the best fountain. It was you.

Sitting up in the water, you saw that it was fairly shallow, only reaching up to a little bit above your elbows. Most of you was soaked, with the exception of the lower halves of your legs. Your hair was clinging to your skin and you tried to blow it out of your face only for it two swing back and hit you with a soft _splat_. Goddamnit.

Wait. You looked around, you knew where you were! It was the prison cell! Hell yeah! Eyes quickly scanning the room, you smile as you easily locate the other inhabitant, Dream, performing his usual routine of standing close to the lava wall with tensed shoulders and fists clenched so hard they were bloody as nails dug into his palms. Hold up a second-

With a gasp and a yelled " _Holy shit!_ " You watch open-mouthed as he hurls himself into the lava wall. What the fuck was the dumbass doing?!? You try to ignore the brief glimpse of burning flesh as he hits the molten rock, and find yourself fairly successful, as the whole scene lasts maybe a second or two before he's gone, lost to the flames.

You blink dumbly as you watch little flecks of lava land on the floor, disturbed by Dream shoulder-checking their source flow. They harden into little pebbles of grey stone, stuck on the floor. What? Had he just.. had he just died?

Your heartbeat picks up, but paradoxically to your rapid racing pulse, you freeze, muscles tensed in shock and uncertainty. No one had died in your dreams before.

You shifted where you had propped yourself up in the water, legs sliding back into the liquid so as to give you a better sense of balance. They were wet now, but you didn't care.

"Dream?" You ask, your question ringing around the empty obsidian room. The lava crackles in response. Holy shit, was dream-Dream just dead now?

There was a noise from above you, like the shifting of gears, and a haunting ring which sounded almost identical to a respawn anchor in minecraft, and your head whipped up, the obsidian chute in full view above you.

Wait a fucking second. That's where the spawnlock in the game put Dream whenever he died.

_FUCK._

You scramble to get yourself out of the water but you slip backwards, the frictionless submerged obsidian proving to be your worst nightmare. You could dully hear the noise of machinery increase in volume.

The one non-obsidian block that tops the chute several metres above you retracts, just as you pick yourself up and attempt to throw yourself out of the shallow landing pool, but Dream falls fast, and he lands on your back with an " _oomph._ "

The amount of profane words that escaped your mouth would have made a sailor quit swearing in shame, as you booted the disoriented green man off of your aching body, dragging your soaking self out of the water.

"What?" You can hear Dream exclaim behind you, " _What?_ "

You groan as you curl up into a ball facing away from him, your right hip was hit weirdly when he fell and now pulses in rhythmic beats of pain then numbness. "Fuck you." You tell him, pathetically.

He grabs your shoulder and flips you over. You try your damndest to kick him in the face with your left foot but he blocks you and redirects your kick into the air with a practised ease that makes you jealous. Every line of his body is reading panic, but you do _not_ care right now.

"You're alive," he says, mostly to himself, "how are you alive?" His hand hasn't left your shoulder, the grip has only tightened, like he was afraid you'd disappear the instant he let go.

A shit-eating grin makes its way to your face. "I'm a bad bitch, you can't kill me."

He stops. Looks at you. Pokes your face with his other hand and quickly retracts the finger before you bite it off, your teeth clicking shut as you snap your jaw. It's quiet.

"That doesn't make any sense!" He yells. You snort at him.

"Yes it does, I just can't die!"

"That isn't possible!"

"Fiiine," you groan, sitting up, "I'm a ghost then."

He recoils, hands leaving you, before he pokes your shoulder again. You try to bite him again.

"You can't be," he mutters to himself, "your skin isn't grey."

"Bitch do I _look like_ a Homestuck to you?"

"What does that even- nevermind." He shakes his hand like the gesture will rid him of your stupid refernces. Too bad for him it won't. "How are you alive?" He continues.

You blink at him, putting a finger to the corner of your mouth in a faux-thought pose, before flicking it up, your eyes screaming ' _eureka!_ '

"I just can't fucking die. I'm that good."

"That's not-" he cuts himself off again, groaning as he sinks from kneeling by you to sitting down. He cradles his head in his hands. You honestly feel like you've won here. He looks back up at you. "Did this have something to do with the whole 'dreaming' thing you mentioned?"

You freeze, an odd expression plastered to your face. You had never gone through a lucid dream in which the characters learnt they weren't real that _hadn't_ ended in some existentialist bullshit. You actually liked this one, what was an excuse you could use?

"Nah, man," you say, cool as a cucumber, smooth as a… smooth thing. Velvet. Wet obsidian. Whatever. "Have you ever heard of astral projection?" Fucking nailed it.

He stares at you and then slowly shakes his head, waiting for an explanation, like he doesn't even know the first thing about astral projection. Wait, _you_ didn't even know the first thing about astral projection. Fuck.

"It's uh. It's where you can go out of your body when you sleep, and stuff."

He looks at you blankly. "'and stuff.'" He repeats with a dead tone. You're definitely getting him.

You nod firmly. "And stuff." You tell him. God, you're so confident.

He rocks backwards slightly, tilting his head up, before taking in a very audible breath and letting out a long sigh as he closed his eyes. You couldn't see him closing his eyes, they were still concealed by the mask, but it was the sheer level of ' _I am fucking done_ ' the sigh possessed that tipped you off. 

"Okay." He said plainly. "Sure. Makes about as much sense as everything else weird about you." ' _Yes!_ ' You fist-pumped internally at your successful lie. "Can it be taught?" ' _Ah fuck._ '

"No, no, unfortunately not," you tell him, making shit up on the spot. "You gotta be born with the ability to use it. It's random. Like a lottery. It's also fairly uncontrollable so I'd say you got the better deal here-" you cut yourself off with a wince as you remember he's locked up in a solitary isolation jail cell. "-Then again, maybe not."

"Yeah. Maybe not."

An awkward silence descends between the two of you, and you decide to swiftly and smoothly move the topic away from reminding Dream about his inescapable isolation and imprisonment.

Sweeping your gaze around the room in an over exaggerated manner, you turn back to Dream before casually asking "So, anything to do around here?"

_Wait fuck, you just kept reminding Dream about his inescapable isolation and imprisonment._

You cringe as he responds in a tone similar to your own, but you can detect a hint of bitterness buried underneath, like a subtle overtone of sour in a dish of professional quality. Or rather, it would be an undertone if the entire thing wasn't also drenched in _I-am-so-bitter_ sauce. "No, not really." You pursed your lips.

The awkward silence had gotten worse. What the fuck.

"Wanna play chess?" You ask. You're shit at the game but honestly you're desperate.

"I don't have a chessboard." His tone is dull.

You blink at him. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"What d-" he laughs. " 'What's that got to do with anything?' You wanna play imaginary chess? Do you just want to picture the board?" He wheezes at you, bending over slightly as he uses a hand to stabilise himself, which is a step up from his previous condition but you still huff.

"No way," you say, not mentioning how that wouldn't work because you'd lose track of the state of the mental chessboard almost immediately, "you do have books, right?"

He looks at you warily.

You smile.

"This is so fucking scuffed." Dream tells you a little while later. An empty book is open in the dead middle, scribbled black and white squares drawn on it. They're uneven, but not as uneven as they would have been if you had drawn them, which you unfortunately couldn't because your hand went straight through the book.

New note! The intangibility also applied to objects. You tested the water and even though you saw it ripple as your hand plunged into it, Dream didn't. You'd be thankful that you can at least touch surfaces so you don't fall through the earth or something, but you're specifically avoiding thinking about that topic just in case dream-logic makes it actually happen.

Both of you sit cross-legged, opposing each other. The book lies open between you, and next to that lie several ripped pieces of paper with little scribbles drawn on them. On Dream's pieces there are words denoting the role of each piece, with the exception of the king, that has a little smiley face on it. Your pieces are slightly different, half of them have scrawled little people wearing dresses and caps or walking pets, and half just have the same denoted-through-text role with your name next to it, because Dream quickly got bored of drawing your little people chess pieces for you.

"Of course, scuffed chess is best chess!" You exclaim happily as he moves the pieces to their proper positions. "And I could never afford a board, so I made do."

"Why couldn't you just carve one?" He asks, briefly looking up at you. You laugh incredulously.

"Ohhh, look at meee! My name is Dream and I can carve wood and shit!" He finishes setting up the board, and shakes his head at you. He gestures towards the board.

"I'll let you go first." He says.

Oh! You blink. "Um. Alright then." Turning your gaze towards the board, you realise that while you know what all these little pieces do, you don't know any strategies that chess players use. You point at one of your pawns, a smiling man wearing a cool jacket. "Can you move this one up two space-thingies?" You ask. What are they called-? "Squares." You say. "Two squares."

Dream hesitates and you feel like he looks at you weirdly, but the mask protects you from the full knowledge of his judgement. "Pawn to G4?" He asks.

"Yeah, that, whatever."

He obliges and moves your little jacket man up two squares, and the game continues. Whenever one of your little people-pieces dies, you give a touching and lengthy eulogy before you make your next move, but you can tell the masked man across from you isn't bothered by it. Besides, you don't have much time to do that anyway, because including the eulogies the game lasts about ten minutes.

You stare at the chessboard, mouth slightly open as you try to comprehend what just happened. Dream crosses his arms and sits back slightly.

"You've never played chess before, have you?"

You flip him off.

You both try a few more games, the types of shitty party games one would play in ye olden days when the internet didn't exist and people were desperate for entertainment. Checkers, snakes & ladders, connect four, even twister after you managed to describe the game to Dream, your arms waving rapidly around in the air as he shook his head in confusion over the game you were describing, but eventually he got it.

Also, note, you don't think actual human people can bend like that, it may be a dream thing or a Dream thing, an issue to be further studied.

Surprising even your easily-distracted self, you managed to spend hours fucking around playing party games, the atmosphere veering wildly between the absolute silence of concentration the the can-barely-stand wheezes of laughter. You refuse to admit how often those times happened after you fell while playing twister. It was funny, though.

Eventually, your eyelids began to feel heavy, and you wound up lying against the corner with all the cool stuff in it, head resting against the lid of the chest as you tried to stay awake.

"I'm either waking up or passing on into an inception dream-within-a-dream type shit," you told the green-clad twister pro next to you. He made an acknowledging noise from where he lay on the floor. Privately, you thought it had likely been a long time since he last slept.

"Think I'm gonna go no--ow." you told him, yawning mid-sentence.

"Come back soon," he mumbled into his arm.

You gave him a thumbs up that he didn't see as you drifted to sleep, gently rocking like a boat on the waves of unconsciousness-

-and opened your eyes to the textured fabric of your couch pressing into your face. Blearily lifting your head up, you touched your cheek and felt the imprints of the couch pattern pressed into your skin. You smiled as you flipped yourself over, stretching out your sleep-sore body.

That had been a good dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUT I GOT NO, BUT I GOT NO, KAKORRAPHIOPHOBIA
> 
> Also, note that holds absolutely no importance in regards to the fic but I just want you to know this, Dream kicks your ass at every game except connect four. You are the fucking king of connect four.


	6. The clownck. Clown clock.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cards are played! 🙂  
> The Warden arrives! 🙃

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT IN THE SAM HELL

You were anticipatory, that was the only way to describe it.

Saturday was a day to be spent with you and yourself, and yet the uninvited speculative thoughts of your dream from last night decided that they were going to invite themselves and crash the party. You found that your mind wandered back to the time you had spent in the prison cell, laughing with the masked man like he was an old friend rather than a dream construct. The genuine warmth you felt in your chest after waking up didn't dissipate throughout the day, it remained there like a slow-burning ember, making you smile at nothing like an absolute idiot. You had forgotten how good the high of making a new friend felt.

You watched streams as you were wont to do, but the entire time your mind kept being cast back to the hours you spent having fun. You couldn't remember the last time you had talked to a close friend in person, was this your brain's way of telling you you needed to get out more?

Even your real-life friends could tell that _something_ was up, asking you a couple of times what had gotten you in such a good mood when you went on voice call with them as the sun set. You watched a movie together over discord, one of the barbie ones because you aren't a barbarian with no taste, and the call was rife with laughter, yourself having gone on an unprecedented joke making streak.

Your leg was bouncing with excess energy before you went to bed. You realised that excitement for a dream was contradictory to the idea of sleeping, and so you pulled out your laptop and re-watched a recent lore stream VOD, one of Ranboo's. You only cried a little bit, honestly. You didn't feel all too excited afterwards.

As you lay down in bed, you hesitated a slight bit. Picking your phone up off of the bedside locker you had laid it face-down on, you quickly searched up a refresher for easy-to-play card games, just in case you ran out of options. For your dream game sessions that only existed in your head. You slapped a hand onto your face. _God,_ you were _such_ a loser.

"Fuck it," you said aloud, slamming your phone back onto the bedside table with just a little bit too much force that had you shooting up in a panic to check the integrity of the phone screen. It was fine. You let out a sigh of relief as you dropped it back down, you would have been so unbearably mad at yourself had you broken that.

Disgruntled, you pulled your duvet over yourself as you settled into bed, head hitting the pillow as you squeezed your eyes shut and adamantly refused to open them until you were asleep, the foggy darkness of unconsciousness slowly overtaking your mind.

You awoke with the opposite sensation of slowly drifting off, coming to a sluggish awareness of yourself. You were lying on the cold floor, neck twinging with stiffness, probably because of whatever angle you had slept in. The odd thing, however, was the weight on your left side, half-immobilizing you.

Opening your eyes and turning your aching neck slightly, your thoughts came to a dead halt as you looked at the large green _motherfucker_ draped over you like a shitty person blanket.

"What the hell." You deadpanned, at a not-insignificant volume. The masked man didn't budge from where he was- sleeping? He was sleeping on you, an arm draped over your midsection, legs tucked underneath your own. 

How the hell did this happen.

Debating your options as you watched Dream's shoulders slowly rise and fall in tune with his breathing, you decided that you would be a kind person, and at least try to escape this demented man's grip before you tried waking him up.

Nodding to yourself at your chosen course of action, you very gently attempted to shift out of the odd grip he was holding you in in his unconsciousness. Slowly using a hand to try and lift his arm off of your person.

He batted it away with an inaudible mumble and grabbed you tighter. The bastard.

' _Right._ ' You thought, nodding to yourself for the second time in a very short period of time. Your aching neck protested the action slightly, but it could suck it up. You knew what you had to do. It would be so fucking funny.

Cupping your free hand over your mouth, you inhaled.

" _ **DUDUDUDU**_ " You shrieked it like a bat out of hell, directly into his face, only to wheeze slightly as he jerked without noise and the tight grip around your torso turned into one that made your ribs creak.

"Holy shit," you hissed out as he cut off the blood flow to everything below the arm, "let me go!"

It took him a moment to process the state he was in, the green-clad man freezing for just a moment before he released you and rolled himself away so fast it was like he had just discovered you had the plague. You made a strangled noise like a songbird being suffocated as he did so.

"Shit- sorry," he apologised, and you gave him a thumbs up to signal no hard feelings before your hands went back down to your midsection. If this hadn't been a dream you would probably bruise.

"How are you so freakishly strong?" You croaked at him, before waving the question off. "Nevermind," you said, "what was up with the whole uh… _that_?"

He pushed himself up into a seating position before he answered, looking you in the face. 

"You didn't disappear," he said, "I didn't mean to do.. uh… I had just fallen asleep."

You laughed, noting in the back of your head how your dream self apparently progresses the plot even when you're awake. "You're a goddamn cuddler!" You say instead, tone gently mocking.

He sputters. "I am not!" He yells at you, and are- _are his ears red?_

You wheeze again this time, the cause being laughter instead of being squeezed like a dog's first chew toy, and you bend double, tears in your eyes. "You are! You absolutely are!"

"No I'm fucking not!"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, and I suppose you just happened to cling to me like a goddamn koala bear to a branch."

"No, I- wait, what's a koala bear?"

You level a serious stare in his direction. "Koalas are the dumbest creatures on the planet. They eat poison. Their brains are so smooth they can't recognise their main food source in a bowl and have to eat it off of a branch. They're clingy and they suck."

Dream was silent. "You remind me of someone I know, but with anteaters."

"I'm taking that as a compliment," you say knowing exactly who he was talking about, before changing the topic to something that had been bugging you slightly, "What do you mean I stayed here? This something that happens when I fall asleep instead of die now?"

He shifts uncomfortably. "Your body doesn't disappear when you die."

Oh. "Oh." you'd only died in lava twice.

A silence envelops the cell.

"Wanna play blackjack?"

Dream, as it turned out, had never played blackjack before. Or any other of the simple card games you had memorised from childhood. You took immediate steps to remedy this absolute tragedy, directing him to rip up pages and scrawl numbers and symbols on them until you had in your possession what must have been the world's most scuffed deck of cards.

"Okay," you told him, "So how this works is that you try to get a number of cards that's closer to twenty-one than mine are. If you go over twenty-one, you instantly lose, it's easy and fun!"

He nodded along with your explanation. "Alright." He said. "So how do we do this if you can't move your own cards?"

You blink. "Fuck."

You eventually manage, mainly relying on Dream to not cheat by looking at the half see-through paper cards. He still beats you nine times out of ten, but insists that he's just good at reading your expressions. He says you're painfully open. You say he's painfully a fucking prick, and flip him off.

Several things happen. You repeatedly rage at his superior people-reading skill, and bet the clock ownership on a game in which you totally don't cheat. You win, against all the odds, and force Dream to prop a piece of paper with a clown face drawn on it over the face of the clock. It is now the _clownck_. You love the clownck.

At some point while playing card games and scuffed checkers (you were slightly better at it than chess), for some reason you started talking about fairy tales, out of all possible conversation topics. Turns out, he had also never heard many of the classic tales that had been perpetuated by disney films, something you found to be an absolute tragedy.

"Okay, and then, Anna says to Hans that only true love's kiss can save her," you rant, arms waving about in the air, the half-finished game of checkers that lies in front of you completely forgotten by this point. Dream stares at you with his chin resting on his hand, and you can't tell exactly _how_ invested he is in your barely coherent retelling of Frozen, but he's definitely listening to some degree. Whatever, the clownck has your back. "And he's like, 'Oh! Great! Brilliant!' And she's super weak so he leans in to a kiss with her, and then he stops, and he goes, 'if only there was someone out there that loved you.' And he leaves her! He just leaves her!" You gesticulate wildly, and in your fervour one of your hands swipes through the checkers 'board' in front of you. Half of the paper pieces fly off, landing up to a foot away on the cold obsidian ground. You pause. "Huh."

Dream tilts his head towards the now scattered shreds of paper, eyeing them with interest. "You can move things?" 

"I… Uh…" you swipe the checkers again, and they move, although not as far. "Apparently so!" You tell him cheerfully.

He hums thoughtfully, and you're starting to feel like he wasn't all too invested in your dramatic retelling of the movie frozen. You wonder idly if it was the ten-minute tangent on reindeers you went on that caused him to lose interest, or the screeching attempt at singing 'Let It Go'.

"Is that an astral projection thing?" He asks, and you freeze.

"Uh, it's. Um." Warning klaxons blare in your brain. _'LIE LIE LIE LIE '_ , they scream. "I don't know!" You say. "I'm incredibly new at this, and uh. All of my family members that could do this are. Dead?" You need to sound more confident. "They all died in their sleep. Yep. Peacefully and shit."

He stares at you, unmoving. "O… kaaaayyyy…" he hesitates while stretching out the word, and you feel like he'd start up another line of vaguely concerned questioning, but that gets cut off by Dream tensing and montioning for you to be quiet.

You tilt your head and you can very, _very_ faintly hear the sound of machinery in the distance, muffled greatly by the crackling of molten rock. "Is that Sam?" You ask, and the hooded man waits a moment before nodding, shooting to his feet as he gathers up all of the loose scraps of paper and slams them into the book, dashing over to the chest as he wedges it down the side of the neatly stacked books in the interior.

"Is he going to punish you for playing checkers with yourself?" You ask incredulously. Dream half shrugs in response.

"I don't know, but I don't want to find out."

You actually get to watch as the fun police arrives this time as the lava falls, Sam cutting an intimidating figure with his towering height and sharp glowing armour. It's strongly contrasted by the jerking movements of the piston machine as it moves forwards, and you snort at the clunky sight.

" _What are you laughing at?_ " Dream hisses under his breath, and you imitate the same jerky movement of the piston machine before falling over, consumed by giggles.

The Warden arrives and just says "Wall." In the same unfriendly tone, and while you usually love Awesamdude's streams, would die for Sam Nook, the usual, _fuck_ this version of the guy. Dream moves to comply as the armoured man performs what you suspect to be the usual inspection, scanning Dream, checking the respwan mechanism, searching through the books- thankfully not the book with all the gaming sheets the two of you had been using, and then you wince as he looks at the clownck and pauses.

"What's this?" The giant asks as he pulls the ridiculously-drawn clown face you forced Dream to scribble after he lost your bet off of the clock, scanning it in his hand for a brief moment before turning his head to Dream, tensed.

" _Psst!_ " You stage whisper, as if Sam would hear you if you spoke with a normal voice. " _Tell him it's the clownck. Clown clock._ " The smile-masked man's shoulders shake slightly, and you continue. " _Do it pussy, you won't._ "

"The clown clock." Dream says plainly from where he's standing against the wall, and you can hear the smile on his face. "The c- _clownck_." He starts to wheeze, shoulders jerking with desperate attempts to restrain his laughter. The Warden is unmoved.

"You aren't here to have fun, Dream." He says, and that sobers up the unarmed man in the room very quickly. Sam turns to kick one of the tiny flecks of cooled lava from where it had hardened on the ground, loosened from Dream's previous suicide attempts- successes? Did death have as much meaning in a world where people could be resurrected? "You'll have to stop killing yourself or I'll be forced to take precautionary measures." He continues, before he strides towards the entrance of the cell and steps onto the redstone machine, setting off with a single "I'll be back." You don't even feel it in you to make a terminator joke as you watch him fly away over the pool of lava that makes up the floor of the larger containment chamber.

The cell is quiet as the lava wall yet again descends, Dream standing still where he had been ordered by The Warden, head hung low. You felt terrible, your own joke had gotten him into trouble. There had to be something you could do to cheer him up.

" _Clownck_." You wheezed. He bursts out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im going to be perfectly honest with you i intended for this chapter to kickstart a larger overarching plotline that wasn't just "you appear, you banter" but i got so distracted by laughing at my own clown clock joke I forgot. Clownck.

**Author's Note:**

> HEY FRIEND WHO READS MY FICS PLEASE DONT CALL ME A DREAM KINNIE OVER THIS ONE WE ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH EVIDENCE OF MY CRIMES /j
> 
> :^D you guys are pog as hell!!!


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